


Winter

by cartographicalspine



Series: Seasons [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Dalish Elves, Domestic, Family, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-02
Updated: 2018-05-02
Packaged: 2019-05-01 01:46:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14509791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cartographicalspine/pseuds/cartographicalspine
Summary: There are new blooms against the stark white snow.Part of a collection of themed stories about my Dragon Age OCs.





	Winter

**Author's Note:**

> There are some liberties taken with how Dalish clans and Keeper magic work here.

The winter frost catches them on the way north, turning the tangled paths of the forest into gleaming, icy ribbons and weaving frozen water into the air. Out come the thick cloaks and fur-lined boots, stringed mittens and heavier scout’s gloves, and the lovingly knitted caps for the children who will not stay put inside the aravels. No, not when the first snow of the season has kindly stopped for them on this road. Not when they have it within arm’s reach, quivery white and bright at the tips of their fingers.

Ashalle steps out with her little one and feels her heart give a slight twinge at the sight of her favorite flowers, usually growing in clusters at the side of the road, now seared by the early chill and withered dead too soon. She complains her disappointment but only to make her child laugh at her grousing, as though she means to call the blooms back with her sighs. He laughs beautifully, ever more excited to go play.

She warms Hanin’s ears beneath her hands before tugging his cap snug over his head, telling him to mind himself in the midst of all that fun. Nodding excitedly, he leans up for a kiss before bounding off to their sister aravel where Lanali is finishing up her list of _do-nots_ with her dear and precocious little Tamlen. The woman gives Hanin a gentle smile, one last teasing ruffle to Tamlen’s hair, and sends them on their way.

He and Hanin race each other over the icy path to join the gaggle of children peering through the thickets for that layer of snow not yet trampled by the halla. The smallest poke tentatively at it for the first time while the older children fling it in half-melted handfuls at each other or shove it down another’s collar. Paivel shakes his head as their shrieks fill the clearing, but he keeps a sharp eye on them all the same, always hawk-like and vigilant under all his years.

Lanali joins her by the stationed aravels with two steaming mugs and the talk of exasperated but doting mothers. Finished, they dole out warm cider and cream among everyone, huddling together and listening to whispered snatches of the Keeper’s discussion with her advisors and scouts. A new path is chosen out, detours around the worst of the ice. It will be slow going for the next few weeks. Ashalle switches with Paivel; Marethari wants the children’s aravel secured, safest among the rest. More inspections, changes, adjustments they’ve made a hundred times, but necessary to discuss all the same.

Ashalle leaves that conversation behind for the happy chatter of the children too young to know anything but the joy and wonder of their little snow-filled glade. They help by tiring themselves out and sleeping through the hardest parts of the journey.

It hasn’t yet been an hour before Tamlen brings Hanin back to her, holding his hand and giving her a fierce look, already a little protector even at his age.

“He’s sick,” Tamlen says, scowling, scuffing his boots in the muddy slush as Ashalle kneels and cups Hanin’s face in her gloved hands, feeling fever even through the wool.

“What happened, my little hallas?” she asks, and Tamlen’s frown softens but he tells her that it’s because of her.

“He got sick because of you, because you wanted...” He nudges Hanin forward and then she sees what’s in his free hand (and thank the All-Mother for strings because his mitten is hanging loose from his sleeve and not abandoned in the snow).

It’s a tiny bouquet, a beautiful splash of cerise pink blossoms like a bit of autumn still lingered here. Her favorite flowers.

He must have seen the look in her eyes because Hanin kneads his stomach and shakes his head. “It’s not Mama’s fault, I promise. I wanted to.”

She doesn’t understand. “Hanin, how did you find these?”

Now he’s happier despite the sickly tinge to his skin. “I asked them to. I told them that my Mama loved them. That it would make her happy to see them and they listened and came back. Are you happy?”

That explains Tamlen’s scowl, and the look on Hanin’s face. The tight look when Marethari asks him to try past what he’s still capable of, when the little trickle of magic in him pulls taut and cannot give any more. The reason that she worries and needles at their Keeper when she’s sure that he’s given enough.

“I’m very happy,” she only half-lies, gathering him up into her arms, and Tamlen looks satisfied. “I’m so very happy and proud. It is a fine gift indeed, my little halla, my little Ena'hanin.”

He drowses blissfully now, mumbling that the flowers are very happy with her happiness, too, and he sleeps deeply for the rest of the day as she sits next to him, thumbing the little blossoms in tender contemplation.

Marethari says little but flashes bright with interest at her story, though her pride ices over when Ashalle pleads for the lessons to stop. He’s never been able to beckon more than little motes of light and these signs of keeper magic must be more than encouraging to her, but she listens and considers Ashalle’s words.

“We’ll see,” she says cryptically and moves the clan onward, northward away from the chill and wind, leaving that day buried under the falling snow. Ashalle gathers him up to bed after every lesson, repeating _we’ll see_ in her head and promising herself that this will pass. It will have to.

At the next Arlathvhen, Marethari keeps her word to her and brings back a little wide-eyed girl to their section of the encampment. She brims with magic and tears and only really stops when Hanin, watching their Keeper make her introductions, steps up to throw his arms around the new child.

“Thank you for coming,” he says happily, drawing her into the circle of their clan. “We’ll take care of you here and make you happy, I promise.”

Merrill spends her first night under the children’s attentions, sipping sweet flavored water and nibbling on sugar cakes, head wreathed in a crown of daisies though they passed the last of those a week ago. Tamlen pokes her sugar-dusted cheek teasingly, and Hanin hums the first few bars of a new song for her, and they argue over the merits of cream cakes and berry cakes until Paivel herds them all away from the food and into bed.

Marethari keeps them under her watch all night, a pleased look in her cool, glittering eyes; whether at her new First or the welcome she received, she seems reassured and restful for the first time in months.

When they turn back, a second winter is coming, scattering the clans once again and sending them back along the deep, dark wooded paths. Frost clings like lace on the branches overhead, and the children babble excitedly about the encroaching snow and whether it might catch them again. Ashalle watches them shuffle along around their newest member and doesn’t complain about her flowers this time. There’s really no reason to; somehow, the clan finds some along the way from then on, bright and cheerful with the last farewells of autumn.

 


End file.
